In America, we have this incorrect idea where there is a separation of church and state to keep the church out of state (i.e., public), rather than what it was really intended to do (it was created by Jefferson in a letter to the Dansbury Baptists and constitutionally created to protect religious freedom), and keep the state out of the church, as it was in England. Basically, we don’t know our own history.

(I have edited this post a couple of times in the attempt to keep if from becoming political. I hope I did a good job.)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

They keep their faith private?! Do you know what you are saying? I WISH more Protestants in America would keep their faith quiet. It seems to me like they are extremely vocal and public about their faith. You can't pass one street corner without some Protestant trying to preach to you, or watch a football game without seeing some weirdo waving a "John 3:16" sign. At the beginning of almost every public event--like a sports game or political thing, there always has to be some prayer thing in the beginning or someone mentioning God. America is practically a theocracy. Just look at how much religion influences our politics, it is the only reason why homosexual marriage is still illegal and you know it, it is also why America supports Israel. Just look at the Republican Party for crying out loud, their policies are rooted in religion. America is probably the only developed nation where a politician can say that they believe "God wants them to run" or enact a certain policy without being laughed off stage. Protestant preachers openly try to influence people's political choices and explicitly align themselves with certain political movements and/of figures and will openly curse the President as being a godless Marxist Muslim. Protestants are spoiled in America. Hell, we don't have enough separation of Church and State in America. I WISH we had more of it. In America it is practically a taboo to support separation of Church and State or even be a non-Christian.

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Until I see the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, I will not believe.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

In America, we have this incorrect idea where there is a separation of church and state to keep the church out of state (i.e., public)

I wouldn't say it's incorrect.

And you would be wrong, but this isn't the politics forum so I digress.

Baptist would surely ban the Greco-Russian cult you have converted to. Not sure how it would be OK.

No idea what you are saying...

Now idea how increasing influence of dominant US Religions (all these crazy Protestant sects) would improve the situation of the tiny Orthodox minority. Can you explain?

I suspect you don’t fully understand or appreciate the original design of American politics. Then, most Americans don’t either so I can’t really hold that against you. Here it is supposed to be Freedom OF Religion, not FROM religion. But again, this is not the political forum.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

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Until I see the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, I will not believe.

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

That's why I'm curious why some Orthodox would support that.

That's pretty pessimistic IMO.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

Considering they are the ones who founded this nation, I think you may be wrong.

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

Considering they are the ones who founded this nation, I think you may be wrong.

And look at how they treated religious minorities in our nation's early years before the First Amendment. Roman Catholics were often discriminated against, certain colonies prohibited worship by certain types of Christians (like Roman Catholics) and at the time we were becoming an independent nation in the 18th century, there was already a ton of opposition by them against total religious freedom. They wanted to limit the presidency to only Christians where others even wanted to prohibit the presidency to certain Christian denominations (like Roman Catholics). Take prayer in schools as another example, it was oftentimes used as a way to target Roman Catholics, minority Christian denominations and other religious minorities--their way of finding out who to discriminate against and try to turn them into good American Protestants.

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Until I see the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, I will not believe.

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

Considering they are the ones who founded this nation, I think you may be wrong.

And look at how they treated religious minorities in our nation's early years before the First Amendment. Roman Catholics were often discriminated against, certain colonies prohibited worship by certain types of Christians (like Roman Catholics) and at the time we were becoming an independent nation in the 18th century, there was already a ton of opposition by them against total religious freedom. They wanted to limit the presidency to only Christians where others even wanted to prohibit the presidency to certain Christian denominations (like Roman Catholics). Take prayer in schools as another example, it was oftentimes used as a way to target Roman Catholics, minority Christian denominations and other religious minorities--their way of finding out who to discriminate against and try to turn them into good American Protestants.

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

That's why I'm curious why some Orthodox would support that.

That's pretty pessimistic IMO.

Can you name any country where one religion was dominant that did not do such things?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

If you were to give America's majority religious population--which is odd Evangelical Protestant sects--more power and influence than they already have, then that would spell out doom for religious minorities like Muslims, and especially us Catholics and Orthodox. Remember, we're just an idol-worshipping neo-platonist cult that polluted the true message of Christ after Constantine in their eyes. They would turn America into a violent theocracy comparable to what Islam has done in the Middle-East.

That's why I'm curious why some Orthodox would support that.

That's pretty pessimistic IMO.

Can you name any country where one religion was dominant that did not do such things?

Depends on the religion. No doubt discrimination occurs, but to the extent of what James speaks of, I don't hear much reports of those from the Balkans killing Muslims nor other countries where Orthodox/Catholic is the majority.

Frankly, I find the idea of Protestants vanquishing minority religions out of America pretty nutty. On what basis? You think Protestants are going to turn into the Westboro Baptist Church overnight? Nope.

But hey my worldview is extremely limited to "secular" Colorado and you know, we have our own religion of sorts. I'll be unaffected in the event of a Protestant Apocalypse.

« Last Edit: November 24, 2012, 06:19:37 AM by Achronos »

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Depends on the religion. No doubt discrimination occurs, but to the extent of what James speaks of, I don't hear much reports of those from the Balkans killing Muslims nor other countries where Orthodox/Catholic is the majority.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

Depends on the religion. No doubt discrimination occurs, but to the extent of what James speaks of, I don't hear much reports of those from the Balkans killing Muslims nor other countries where Orthodox/Catholic is the majority.

Wasn't there a time in Russia where Islam flourished under the Tsars? I mean they weren't totally expelled like in Spain, for example, but sure russification happened. Besides I am not basing my opinions on history.

But this isn't really answering my question, anyway.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

So how would you base opinion "religious states have always failed but wen this time we create one it won't"?

Um, what exactly are you talking about? I'm being serious here because I believe we are talking about two separate things. In America, religion is kept as primarily a private enterprise. We make it a point to keep our religious convictions at home and put on something PC for our jobs. You have many folks who are Christians at home but when they go to work it's a different story. That's one example. As far as I have understood our society, it is never a good thing to talk about religion in public even if there are those in a certain populace that are in general agreement.

Americans will stand in church every Sunday when they get to LARP as a Christian, then once the services are over it's back to the real religion that drives everything we do: consumerism. We just had our biggest feast day yesterday as consumers, did you see the festivities?

EDIT: Just to clarify, I am critiquing a certain thing about Americans who consider themselves to be Christians. As I said, I am not sure why we keep religion almost like a taboo. I may have an answer, which is everybody has an opinion on what they believe and that's fine, there is no objective truth, but merely subjective and we cannot argue with others about it. Maybe it's just in Colorado, but I hardly see alot of Gospel preaching. For some like orthonorm, that's a good thing.

I am one of those who believe religion, if we actively practice it, should be in everything we do, and part of that is sharing our faith with others.

It's like that great platitude the Orthodox say about Orthodoxy in America "It's America's greatest secret!", well why make it a secret? Most of the religious conversations I have with folks is "Oh so what do you believe?" and they will answer whatever religion they follow and that ends the conversation.

I am always happy to hear from the few that like to discuss what they believe because it's obvious how important they value their religion. And I have alot of respect for those who place an importance on it because what is more important? We shouldn't be lukewarm with what we believe in, and that's part of what drew me to dig deeper into what I actually believe.

No point of having a religion if you aren't going to be fully committed to it, but maybe I'm being extreme here.

« Last Edit: November 24, 2012, 07:01:57 AM by Achronos »

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

Go to a darker shade and people ain't so reticent about their religion.

And Cyrillic, Western Europeans are far, far more private about religious beliefs than your typical uptight middle class American.

IME, in WE the "private" nature grew out of a sorta laissez faire maturity that most Europeans have about nearly every aspect of their lives, while willing to have serious and heated debate without hurt feelings. While Americans have a more tentative and anxiously reticence lest they be open to any criticism and fear everyone's feelings will get hurt.

Young nation with people constantly coming and buying into the adolescent notion of its exceptionalism colors nearly every part of middle class American life.

Depends on the religion. No doubt discrimination occurs, but to the extent of what James speaks of, I don't hear much reports of those from the Balkans killing Muslims nor other countries where Orthodox/Catholic is the majority.